Kashmir

Asia Briefing N°106, 3 June 2010

Even if India and Pakistan appear willing to allow more interaction across the Line of Control (LOC) that separates the parts of Kashmir they administer, any Kashmir-based dialogue will fail if they do not put its inhabitants first.

Recent Reports

Even if India and Pakistan appear willing to allow more interaction across the Line of Control (LOC) that separates the parts of Kashmir they administer, any Kashmir-based dialogue will fail if they do not put its inhabitants first.

When the third round of the normalisation talks concludes in July 2006, India and Pakistan will be no closer than when they began the process in February 2004 to resolving differences, including over Kashmir.

The agreement between Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, and India's new prime minister, Manmohan Singh, to continue talks on all contentious issues including Kashmir has inspired optimism about reduced tensions in South Asia.

While its roots predate Indian and Pakistani independence, the Kashmir conflict’s current directions can best be understood in the light of the nationalism and state building that followed the end of British colonial rule.

Recent state elections in Jammu and Kashmir, and the loss of power by the National Conference party that has dominated politics there since independence, have created a spark of hope that political tensions in the
Kashmir
Valley could de-escalate.